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Almost a problem…

I didn’t accomplish much today.  I started out way too slow and for some odd reason I didn’t get any faster as the day progress. 

I have a lot of electronics in and around the house.  I have several cameras set up as security watch to see what is going on when I was not home.  I have multiple computers, run a weather station on one, which is shared on the internet at Weather Underground and do a lot of ham radio stuff with computers like run an APRS station that also puts out the weather as well as provide an internet link for amateur radio operators that use APRS (Automatic Position Reporting System)… with all that stuff networked up I have network wires run all over the place.  I had upgraded my switchs and routers to gigabit units but still can not get gigabit speeds to any other than 3 positions in the house.  My weather and camera computer does not get that faster speed.  I thought it was maybe the network wires and I have run in new CAT5e wires to several locations but that doesn’t get it fixed.  I can get the faster speed in some spots but not others and it is frustrating to not get it figured out.

This morning I run a new CAT6 in the shop from the front switch to the back in the ham shack but that didn’t get gigabit…? I had a 25 ft. length of shielded that is about 5 ft too short but stretched it anought and moved the switches enough to test and it gets gigabit… so it may be my connector work or might be electrical interference?  While I was researching all that I was interrupted by my wife??? she had come home from the Dr.’s office to find out why I was not answering the phone or texts… ? well my cell phone was on the charge in the bedroom and I had accidentilly unhooked the shop phones in checking out my network wires…ooops…  I quickly packed things up and we took off for lunch in town… I would do more in the afternoon as I had a length of CAT5e that I had run some years ago laying in the crawlspace that might work better as a full run not split with the switches..?

On my way home from lunch and a side trip trying to find some special power connectors, I spotted this guy having a great day… or was it that the air outside was better than inside?

SAM_2038

Once home if figured to continue the wiring.  In my running of some new wires I had some that were under a portion of the house that has a crawl space, so I got down there to route those to the mechanical room that houses most of the connections.  While I was in the house the cat decided she wanted some attention and showed up in the way.  I gave a little but was focused on my project.  I went into the crawl space and proceeded to run the wires through the flooring back to the cross over to the basement area and was not watching the entry way in… well that stupid cat…

 

followed me down and I didn’t see it.  I finished up my routing and crawled back out.. put the lid back on the crawl hole, etc…

SAM_2040

Crawl space entry point in a closet… and

SAM_2043

The space under the house… I do have a light down there…

As I was working on putting the end connectors on the CAT5e cable it occurred to me I hadn’t seen the cat in the house.  She usually stays down stairs and I had been through there several times getting the cable in and working on the connectors… It occurred to me she might have gone outside?  but I hadn’t left the door open for that… oh well, back to my project… I went out the the shop (Ham sack) several times to get the connections on and test the cable… I got it working but not at gigabit speed… probably just too long a run.  The shorter runs via the switches should have been high speed but they mostly were not either?  I even run a length of new CAT6 but didn’t get gigabit on that.  I did get it on a 25 ft piece of shielded that I bought, premade, several months ago but 25 ft is about 5 ft too short for the run in the shop… It works but I have to put one switch way up to the entry and the other hang loose over the door? Once I determined that I was just not going to get high speed at this time and needed to rethink my project,  I went back in the house and figured I should look for the cat because for some odd reason I thought that she might have gone down under the house and if so, she would be locked in till ???? I had to pull all the stuff back out of the closet, pull the escape door and peek under the floor and yep… stupid cat had followed me down and UI was unaware of that … she popped right out and went over and “flopped” on the floor… The only way we would have known is in a few weeks it would have smelled bad in the house… although I am sure I would have traced it back to my going down to the crawl space as she now tends to follow me where ever… like the dogs… at 4:30pm it was nice out so I took the dogs out front and threw their toys for them to chase after (they like to run after a big kong ball and a kong disc)… each has a favorite so they don’t switch off to chase the others toys… at the point that they have had enough the little one will run up to the door waiting to get in… this time out… I left the front door open a little as the cat was watching as we went out…sure enough she came out and watched while the dogs chased but as soon as the dogs headed for the door, she was there just like them… I guess she is too good to chase toys… but wants to be included anyway…

With that I spent some time tonight going over the issues of not getting gigabit speeds on gigabit equipment… most of it  looks like maybe electrical interference as they are too closely associated or potentially some jumpers that we had to put on way back when the mechanical room was finished up and the wires were in the wrong place and too short… I may redo that series of connections to see if it fixes some of the problems… but that will be for later…

WD0AJG

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